Exactly three months after an Army veteran was killed in a head-on crash, the other driver has been arrested and charged with DUI manslaughter.

Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office investigators said Clinton East had cocaine in his system when he drifted into the oncoming lane and collided head-on with another car on Melaleuca Lane near Mathis Street on Aug. 23. Richard Reyes, 38, was killed in the accident. A third car rear-ended Reyes' vehicle, and that driver was also injured.

Advertisement

Reyes, a proud family man, left behind a wife and 14-year-old daughter.

Family members remembered Reyes as always happy, boisterous and the life of the party. He was an Army veteran who always tried to persuade his wife to go skydiving, and he helped out as a volunteer basketball coach in Greenacres. Relatives said Reyes had gone out for a quick trip to the gas station to fill his car up and was blocks away from home when the fatal wreck occurred.

The prosecutor told the judge that East had five prior felony drug offenses and repeated traffic violations.

"(Clinton East has) been in this situation before, not with killing somebody but with drug usage and the family continues to bail him out," the victim's uncle Robert Ferrer Jr. told WPBF 25 News. "For all the times they've bailed him out, this is the one that hurts the most because he's actually taken somebody's life."

East has been charged with DUI manslaughter, DUI with injury and DUI property damage. For the DUI manslaughter charge alone, East is facing a mandatory minimum of four years in prison.